Equifax Secure eBusiness IDs, as the certificates are called, confirm to a site's visitors that they have reached their intended destination. They also encrypt and protect exchanged data from interception or tampering using the SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, protocol.

The latest extension of Equifax's complexity-reducing strategy, eBusiness IDs are meant to be an "affordable, compatible, and reliable choice" for securing commerce servers, said Equifax Secure general manager Jeffrey Johnson.

Customers get a $300,000 warranty that Equifax Secure will follow the rigorous procedures in its public certificate practice statement. The credentials can be obtained from www.equifaxsecure. com/ebusinessid. A 12- month certificate costs $225, with a renewal rate of $199 upon expiration, and there are volume discounts.

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The increasing adoption of virtual card payments by accounts payable departments has created an unex­pected complication for suppliers: more friction in the processing, posting and reconciliation of payments and receivables. The root of the problem is that most suppliers rely on a manual approach to processing e-mailed virtual card payments. Suppliers are forced to balance their organization’s need for operational efficiency and control with rising customer demand to pay with a virtual card. But a new breed of tech­nology enables suppliers to process virtual card payments straight-through, addressing the needs of buyers and suppliers. This paper details the growth of electronic business-to-business (B2B) payments, shows how manual approaches to processing virtual card payments cause friction in accounts receivables, describes a way to process virtual card payments straight-through, and highlights the benefits of friction­less payments.